1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a liquid crystal device and an electronic apparatus.
2. Related Art
As a means for achieving a wide viewing angle of a liquid crystal device, an IPS (In-Plane Switching) mode, which is one example of a so-called lateral electric field mode, has been put into practical use, in which an electric field is generated in an in-plane direction (lateral direction) to a substrate, the lateral electric field causes liquid crystal molecules contained in a liquid crystal layer to be rotated in a plane parallel of the substrate, thus controlling the transmission of light. Further, an FFS (Fringe-Field Switching) mode is proposed as an improvement of the IPS mode.
Such a lateral electric field mode liquid crystal device has a configuration in which electrodes such as common electrodes and pixel electrodes or conductive members such as wirings are arranged on an element substrate having formed thereon driving elements such as TFT, whereas conductive members are not arranged on a counter substrate which is disposed close to the display surface. For this reason, there is a problem in terms of display quality in that such a liquid crystal device is likely to be affected by external electric fields outside of the counter substrate, typically static electricity, and thus, irregularities in liquid crystal display are likely to occur. In order to solve such a problem, a method has been proposed in which a transparent conductive film is formed on the side of the counter substrate so that static electricity is trapped in the transparent conductive film, thereby preventing display irregularities (see JP-A-2001-051263, for example).
JP-A-2001-051263 discloses a configuration of the counter substrate in which the transparent conductive film is provided on the outer side (the side opposite to the liquid crystal layer) of the glass substrate and a configuration in which the transparent conductive film is provided on the inner side (the side of the liquid crystal layer) of the glass substrate. When these configurations are compared, the counter substrate having the transparent conductive film on the inner side thereof has an advantage that it is easy to manufacture because the transparent conductive film can be formed by being laminated on members provided on the inner side such as an alignment film, and it is thus not necessary to reverse the glass substrate.
However, JP-A-2001-051263 discloses a configuration in which a conductive film provided on the inner side of the upper glass substrate (the counter substrate) and the common electrodes provided on the glass substrate (element substrate) are bonded together by a sealing portion so that both substrates are bonded together, and silver pastes are arranged around the sealing portion so that a vertical electrical connection between the conductive film and the common electrodes is realized. However, since adhesion is poor between metal materials or metal oxides and curable resin, which is the forming material of the sealing portion, the liquid crystal device is likely to be damaged due to peeling at the bonding surface, and reliability is likely to deteriorate. On the other hand, when the surface of the conductive film is covered with materials showing good adhesion with the sealing portion, the vertical electrical connection between the conductive film and the common electrodes cannot be realized.